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Traffic-barrier company closes its doors day before Colfax Marathon

By Kristen Leigh PainterThe Denver Post

Posted:
05/17/2013 04:00:07 PM MDT

Updated:
05/18/2013 12:10:48 AM MDT

A barrier provided by Highway Technologies at the set of American ninja Warrior in Denver's Civic Center, Friday, May 17, 2013. Highway Technologies closed its doors suddenly just two days before it was scheduled also to provide barriers for the Colfax Marathon. (Barry Osborne, The Denver Post)

On the eve of one of Denver's busiest spring weekends for road closures and major outdoor events, the company providing the traffic barricades for both the Colfax Marathon and American Ninja Warrior competition closed its doors abruptly.

Some serious team hustling Friday helped avert what could have been an event planner's nightmare. Houston-based Highway Technologies on Friday morning notified all 33 of its locations — including two in Colorado — that it was going out of business, effective immediately.

It wasn't immediately clear how many employees will be affected in Colorado.

By the time Colfax Marathon officials heard the news, they were knee-deep in Expo activities at Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium.

The weekend's events include a full marathon — which is 26.2 miles of road — a half-marathon, a 10K and marathon relay on Sunday, as well as a 5K on Saturday. All of the routes together span across Denver, Aurora and Lakewood, totaling 39 miles of pavement.

Race officials called an emergency meeting of the three cities involved, Denver Public Works and several barricade companies Friday afternoon.

"It was three companies that are competitors who sat side-by-side and divided it up," said Andrea Dowdy, the race's CEO. "Everyone is working in conjunction to put all the parts in place for the race."

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Highway Technologies was by far the largest company of its kind in the Denver metro area, and marathon spokeswoman Liz Easterly said it will take the combined power of the smaller companies — Northern Barricades Co., Warning Lights Inc. and RoadSafe Traffic Systems — to cover the race course miles.

Meanwhile, the out-of-business company's barricades are sitting unused in City Park, where the races begin and end.

Barricades for the Colfax Marathon stand unattended at City Park on Friday. Organizers of the marathon races and the American Ninja Warrior competition asked three other barricade companies to split up the work. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)

"They had already delivered some of them. The half-marathon course had more than 50 percent of the barricades delivered, and the full marathon had a percentage delivered as well," Easterly said.

Just across town at Civic Center park, officials for the ninja competition were nearing completion of its obstacle course-like set when they were told that they would have to set up the traffic detour barricades themselves.

"They contacted the city and then the city sent us the street closure plan and said, 'You'll have to set it up yourself,'" said Brian Lotierzo, line producer for CanAm Productions, which is putting on the ninja contest.

Lotierzo said the signs and barricades had been delivered Thursday and were just sitting on the side of the road, so he and his team followed the diagram provided and set it all up themselves. The show is being filmed Sunday and Monday evenings, and the crew will spend Tuesday tearing down and packing up.

According to Highway Technologies in Colorado, the company has notified its clients that they must find another vendor to come out and replace the barricades and that the company will remove its barricades starting Monday.

"If they think they are going to come by Monday and pick them up, they're not," Lotierzo said.

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